


And I'll Feed You Again

by minie_ai



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern with Magic, Alternate Universe - Shapeshifters, Alternate Universe - Urban Fantasy, Developing Friendships, Fox Suna Rintarou, Implied Relationships, M/M, Might be slightly OOC, Miya Osamu-centric, Onigiri Miya, Restaurant Owner Miya Osamu, Small Towns, Supportive Miya Siblings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-11
Updated: 2020-09-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 22:40:43
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26406649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minie_ai/pseuds/minie_ai
Summary: It’s not until he’s tucked in bed, staring into the ceiling in the darkness of his room, did it finally hit him.Fuck, he’s been meeting with Suna all this time.Or: Osamu is just trying to run his little restaurant, in his little town. Finding a fox going through his rubbish bin hadn't been weird, whathadbeen weirder was that the fox kept returning. Though the most weirdest thing was when Osamu finds himself befriending the fox andlooking forwardto spending time with it.
Relationships: Miya Osamu/Suna Rintarou
Comments: 23
Kudos: 194
Collections: SunaOsa





	And I'll Feed You Again

**Author's Note:**

> This is not beta-read, so I apologise in advance if there are any mistakes

It’s a small town. Osamu knows the old woman - _Mitsuki, she had insisted on him calling her that instead of Mrs. Sato_ \- currently sitting in his little store comes in every second day and would always ask for recommendations, but would stick with her order of salmon, spicy marinated beef and pickled plum onigiris on rotation. The other woman with Mitsuki, the housewife Riko with her toddler, preferred wasabi tuna onigiri, but always ordered tuna-mayo ones to go as an afternoon snack for her other child that was currently in kindergarten. There was also the elderly man that came in every Wednesday morning, just as Osamu flipped the sign to ‘ _Open’_ , and would order that day’s special menu. There were also the high school kids, and the business-men that seemed to be constantly preoccupied by the work on their phones, often forgetting that they were in Osamu’s store at all. 

It wasn’t difficult memorising the orders of his regulars, there were only that many people in the small town, and there were only this many stores where one could dine-in and take-out good food. The people of this town were as familiar to him as forming an onigiri was.

Rice on his palm.

 _(“Someone moved in next door”.)_ _  
_ _  
_ A heaping of katsuobushi.

( _“That house has been empty for a while, hasn’t it?_ ”)

Another spoon of rice on top.

( _"Yes, I saw a young man in there recently._ ”)

Press together.

(“ _That’s odd, why would someone move in so suddenly?_ ”)

A flick of his wrist, press together again.

(“ _I thought so too and checked, and his family isn’t even from around here._ ”)

“Here ya go, Riko-san,” Osamu slides the plate of katsuobushi onigiri in front of the young housewife.

The ladies stop their conversation, and she smiles gratefully at him. “Thank you Osamu, you really saved me here.” She says as she digs into her food.

He wipes his hands and returns her smile. “Ya just got lucky I had some katsuobushi prepared,” he replies. “Did someone move in?” he asks. It wasn’t everyday that someone moved into their town, with more people, like his brother, moving out into the big cities instead.

“Yes, was just telling Riko-chan here. A young man moved in next door a couple of days ago and I thought it strange!” Mitsuki exclaims loudly. Osamu was lucky that his store was currently empty save for the two - three if he included little Yuta - in front of him. He was sure that they would have earned some displeased stares by the volume.

“He’s such a young man, and to suddenly move here is so weird. I did a little digging, and he doesn’t even have any family ties here. Don’t cha’ think it’s odd too Osamu-kun?” she asks, not even trying to hide her obvious suspicion. 

“I’ll hafta’ meet him first before I can comment, sorry Mitsuki-san,” he apologises. He continues to slowly pack away the ingredients on the counter, more as an excuse to not sit around and contribute to the gossip of the old lady than anything. Osamu thought that he was always more of the type that listens to things and takes them in, leaving Atsumu to be the one contributing to gossip. But he doubts that it will be long before he meets the new guy anyways. Onigiri Miya sat proud and fresh at the edge of the only strip of restaurant stores their town had, looking better for wear than most of her neighbouring stores. It was hard to miss her.

“Well, you’ll know him when you see him. Looks around your age and exactly like a city-grown boy.” Mitsuki says as she adjusts the glasses on her nose. “But don’t worry, I still think you’re more handsome, Osamu,” she adds with a laugh.

Osamu snorts out a laughter along with her. “Ya know, if you wanted a discount then you just had to ask, Mitsuki-san.”

Mitsuki laughs, and stands to the other counter to pay. Osamu helps ring her up, and does discount her bill without her having to ask. She pays in full, and despite him arguing that she shouldn’t and that she should take back the change, she still puts it into the tip jar with an extra 500 yen and winks to him as she leaves. Riko leaves soon after as well, rushing out of the store with a glance at the time and yelling something about being late for the kids and him keeping the change. He didn’t even manage to get a word in before she was out the door and down the street, little Yuta clutched tight in her arm looking alarmed. 

The store was quiet after that, and Osamu knew that it would remain like this for the next two hours, until the business men finished their work for the day and the highschool students finished their club activities. Osamu glances around the store and sees that everything was already tidy and in place. With a reluctant sigh, he settles himself behind the counter again, bringing out a notebook where he had been scribbling down new recipe ideas. Although his current recipes were already popular, Osamu thought there was no harm in trying something new. He trusted that the locals would give him honest feedback.

He’s written down some ideas when he hears his phone buzz.

From _: Spam Number_

_next time im back ur making me fatty tuna_

He snorts at the message. He could imagine his brother eating bare salad and dry chicken breast whilst typing that.

To: _Spam Number_

_Lol sounds like ur enjoying ur diet_

He sends the message and sets the phone down, hoping to finish the current recipe he had started on. The phone starts ringing, and Atsumu’s face pops up, as if his brother knew that he had wanted to be productive with his time and just _had_ to annoy him. Osamu picks up anyway.

Time seems to fly whenever he’s on call with Atsumu. Osamu thinks that Atsumu might know how to suck out time the way he seems to know how to suck out someone’s energy. Before he knows it, the business men and highschoolers come and go, and he’s already turning the sign to ‘ _Close_ ’ by the front door. 

He’s in the kitchen and the plan was to test out new recipes to incorporate aburaage into onigiris, but he ended up making just plain inarizushi, when he hears a crash from the outside. He has heard this exact sound for the last couple of days to know exactly what it was, so the sound no longer alarms him. Instead, he finishes lining up two inarizushi perfectly onto a small plate and wipes down his hands before bringing the plate out the back door with him. 

The culprit was where Osamu had expected him to be, hanging on the edge of his trash bin by his forelegs in the exact position he had found him in some days ago. 

The first time Osamu had heard the crash outside of his store, he had gone to inspect the sound with a rice scoop in hand. Now that he thought back on it, it probably wasn't the best tool to use as protection, but Osamu had thought if anything, the muscles he had accumulated through years of volleyball in school along with the muscles he had gained through carrying sacks of rice for his store sure would've helped him overpower any trespasser. 

One could imagine his surprise when instead of finding a man in a mask trying to rob him, Osamu found a little fox dangling on the edge of his bin, body and tail swishing outside as its forelegs and head was hidden by the bin. When Osamu walked closer, he found that the fox - fortunately - wasn't trapped underneath the lid of his bin like he had thought, but instead, it seemed to be happily gnawing on a piece of rubbish, more specifically, the rubbish of the Chuupet Osamu had snacked on and thrown out over his break. Osamu didn't know the first thing about a fox's diet, but he knew that chewing on plastic, and even the sugary remaining of the Chuupet couldn't be good for a fox. So he did what he thought was best at the time - completely forgoing his own safety - and wrestled the Chuupet stick out of the fox's mouth. The fox gave in surprisingly easy, as if it deemed that it wasn't worth fighting to keep the bite on the stick, but Osamu had been more surprised by the fact that the fox didn't bite him either. It didn't look like any fox he's seen before - not that he had ever seen any this close up before anyway - but with its narrow golden eyes and dark brown tufts of fur that stuck out on both sides, Osamu had originally assumed that it might have been a fox-dog hybrid.

The fox sat down in front of him as soon as Osamu had gotten the stick out and let him go, and he made sure to wedge the stick inside one of the rubbish bags so that the fox wouldn't get to it again. Osamu had eyed the fox warily, not knowing whether it would attack him or not, but the fox just eyed him back, almost expectantly. Again, Osamu didn't know the first thing about what foxes ate, but he knew that they offered inarizushi to the Inari god, and although he wasn't sure whether that was the best thing to feed a fox, myths had to stem from somewhere, right? So he told the fox to stay and wait, not fully sure whether the fox understood him or not, but he did add that the fox should stop going through his trash, just in case he did. 

He returned five minutes later with four pieces of inarizushi on a plate, and was surprised to find that the fox had actually stayed. The fox was still eyeing all his movements, so Osamu had taken a seat by the back door steps, before lowering the plate onto the ground and slowly pushing it out for the fox to eat. It had sniffed at the plate for a solid second before it started wolfing down the inarizushi with loud bites. 

Osamu had watched it eat. He had never been allowed a pet whilst growing up despite his pleas (Osamu had pinned it on his parents not being able to take care of another pet, Atsumu had been enough) and now with him running his own restaurant, he simply didn't have enough time to take care of one, so he enjoyed his time watching the little fox enjoying its meal. 

It had licked the plate clean, and Osamu was proud of himself for thinking ahead and using one of the old plates that had a slight chip on one side, because there was no way he would be able to use that plate to serve customers anymore. After the plate was completely clean, the fox had simply sat again, watching Osamu as if almost analysing him. Osamu didn't move as to not scare the animal, he doesn't know how long he remained frozen like that, but eventually the fox had trotted away and around the corner. 

Osamu had cleared and cleaned the plate, thinking that that was the end of his little fox friend. He had been thoroughly surprised when the fox returned the day after, and then the next, and the next as well. It had gotten so comfortable with Osamu - or perhaps it had become so appeased by the inarizushi Osamu fed it each time - that it had even started curling itself next to Osamu's seat on the steps, letting Osamu pet its fur with his hand. Osamu had also started talking to the fox, retelling the stories that he had overheard during the day as to not just sit in silence. It allowed him to unwind and talk to someone (something?) at the end of the day as well as relive the memories. 

No matter all of that and how smart the fox seemed, it still insisted on crashing Osamu's rubbish bin and dangling out of it to make an entrance each time. 

"I told ya not to stick yer stupid lil head in there over 'n over again, didn't I? I'm gonna stop feedin' you if ya don't," Osamu says with a sigh, placing the plate down by the steps. Despite how much the fox seemed to like dangling by the bin, it still kept itself clean by avoiding touching all of the rubbish inside, as if only to dangle there to stir up trouble for Osamu. 

The fox flicked its ears when Osamu grabbed it under its forearms to carry it over to their place on the steps. The fox immediately scuttles over to the plate to start eating. It had slowed down its pace significantly from the first day, now taking its sweet time to slowly chew through each bite. Osamu takes a seat next to the plate, stroking the soft fur of the fox’s head with his hand, resting his chin on his other hand that he had propped on top of his thigh. He vaguely wonders if a wild fox was supposed to have fur this soft. 

“Ya know, the ladies were sayin’ a new guy moved here, I wonder when I’ll meet ‘im.”

The fox stills for a second, and Osamu wonders whether it was a coincidence as the fox starts with its meal again. 

“I think he might’ve moved in next ta Mitsuki-san, that place has been empty for ages”. The fox continues eating, so Osamu continues his petting and talks about how he saw two highschoolers probably have their first date in his store, as their awkward shyness was so thick, he could’ve probably chopped it up and served it to them in onigiris. The fox curls up next to him halfway through the story, close enough that Osamu could feel its heat against his thigh. They stay like that for a bit more, even after Osamu finishes retelling all of the stories for the day. He can see why people keep pets, and his resolve to get a pet when he’s old enough to retire only grows stronger. 

“It’s gettin’ late, I should head home,” Osamu stands up and dusts off his pants. The fox makes a little sound and lifts its head from where it had been resting on its paws, blinking languidly up at him. “You should go back too, to wherever yer home is, jus’ don’t go gettin’ stuck in nobody’s bins anymore.” He bends down to scratch the fox behind the ears, and feels it lean against his palm. His heart does a little clench at the sight and he has to convince himself that _no_ , he can't take the animal home no matter how cute it is. 

“See ya tomorrow lil buddy,” he waves his hand at the animal and closes the back door behind him. He still had to clear up the stuff from earlier, and he was still nowhere near finishing his development for his new menu. Osamu closes his eyes and lets out a loud sigh, he supposes it could always wait another day. 

-

Months pass by like this. He’s busy with his store, keeping his customers happy with good food and entertained by lending them an ear to listen to. He still hasn’t met the new guy who had moved into their town some time ago, but he hears about him more often than he had thought. He vaguely wonders if it was slightly creepy knowing so much about a guy he’s never met, but then again, if Akagi could get away with knowing the exact date a photo was taken just by looking at the - _in his words_ \- “airport fashion” of his K-pop idols, then this shouldn’t be that much different. 

“And I’m telling you Osamu, that guy hasn’t even introduced himself to us neighbours at all this time, he’s so unfriendly!” Mitsuki complains through a mouthful of onigiri. Osamu makes a nonchalant sound in the back of his throat to let her know that he was still listening to her, not agreeing or disagreeing with her statement. 

“I’m telling ya, he’s not going to survive out here during the winter if he keeps this up. That city boy will go scrabblin’ back to wherever he came from.”

Osamu tries his best to politely smile through his annoyance, but he could feel himself wearing thin. “Mitsuki-san, that’s a lil harsh, ain’t it? I’m sure he’s a nice guy, what if he just don’t like interactin’ with people?”

“You’re a nice boy Osamu, but once you reach my age, you just don’t have the patience for that anymore,” Mitsuki says with a smile on her face, but Osamu could hear - no, _feel_ \- the threat in her voice. He excuses himself with wiping down tables to get away from her and possibly saying something that might offend his most loyal regular. Mitsuki leaves shortly afterwards, and Osamu bids her goodbye. She returns his farewell with an apologetic pat of her hand against his arm and a warm smile, and he sighs in relief to know that he hadn’t offended her. 

His relief doesn't last long though, as immediately after, a group of tourists come swarming into his tiny store. There was only one table previously occupied, but suddenly the store feels a lot less smaller. A man comes up to him and greets him _hello_ in a heavy foreign accent before he starts saying something in a language Osamu couldn't understand. He realises it’s English when he hears the word ‘ _please_ ’, one of the only four english words Osamu had remembered from his highschool classes ( _alongside ‘Excuse me, ‘Thank you’ and ‘Sorry’_ ). He regrets dozing off so much during English class now. 

“Uh..So-sorry, Engl-ish not…” Osamu trails off, holding his hands politely in front of him. He doesn’t know how to explain that he couldn’t communicate with him if he couldn’t speak English. 

The man in front of him makes a loud “Ah” sound, and Osamu hopes that it was an ‘ _Ah_ ’ in understanding, but it doesn’t appear to be the case as the man continues talking way too fast for Osamu to possibly try to decipher his words. The man laughs out loud, and goes to clap Osamu on the shoulder, and he tenses as he pretends to laugh along with whatever the man was saying. Osamu darts his eyes across his store, where the other foreign tourists were chatting animatedly among themselves in a volume that would’ve earned them a hard ‘tsk’ by some of the older townspeople if they were here. A pair of tourists stand in front of the onigiri display, and Osamu excuses himself from the tall man in front of him with a slight bow. He rushes behind the corner and hopes his nervousness doesn’t translate through his smile as the two girls start talking to him. 

“Excuse me?” One of the women calls out. Osamu moves so that he stands behind the display counter, hoping that she was going to order instead of engage in another conversation with him that foreigners seemed to be so fond of. Thankfully she doesn’t say anything else after giving him a warm smile, instead, she uses her finger to point out the different onigiri she wants. Osamu smiles back, and packs all of her onigiri into a plastic bag for her. At the counter, she holds out her palms full of coins to him, and Osamu has to repress his snigger at the action whilst picking out the correct amount. It continues like this with most of the other people in the large group of tourists, most just pointing at the onigiri they want and then paying for it. The weather must have been nice, as most of the tourists chose to exit his store after purchasing, leaving room for Osamu to breath. It appears that he wasn’t the only one slightly stressed by the group of foreigners, as he sees the old man he vaguely remembers as being the hairdresser’s retired husband also seem to relax with the store now being emptier again.

“Excuse me?” A voice calls out to him, and Osamu goes back over to the display counter where the man from earlier was smiling out to him. He puts his customer smile back on, but could feel his cheeks starting to hurt from the strain of effort. 

“Can I-” the man continues babbling something that Osamu doesn’t catch nor understand. The man talks with lots of hand gestures that Osamu found equal parts flashy and useless, as it helped him no further in understanding what the man was trying to say except that he might be excited. He’s pointing out different onigiri, and that much Osamu _can_ understand, so he goes to pick them out. For the last one, the man was pointing at an empty row where his minced tuna and spring onion onigiri had been, a filling that has recently been experiencing a surge of popularity after Atsumu had visited and perhaps snapped a picture of. It became a hit amongst Atsumu’s fan base, with Osamu getting customers on the weekends that tell him that they travelled all the way out here especially to try his food (and maybe also snap a picture with him to post on their Instagram). 

“Ah sorry, no-no more,” Osamu crosses his arms in front of him to signify that they had run out. If it had not been so busy and Osamu wasn’t feeling as drained as he was, he might have taken the time to prepare one for him, especially considering that the man had obviously come from abroad and then also travelled all the way out here. 

Osamu sees the way the man’s eyes start to narrow, though his voice still remains the same as he continues to talk to - more like _at_ \- him. He points at the glass screen more insistently, and Osamu continues holding up his crossed arms, shaking his head along as well. The man’s voice starts growing in volume and his eyes become so narrow that Osamu thinks his thin eyebrows might meet in the middle. Osamu continues to shake his head when the man points at the glass, and he hadn’t been more grateful that he had years of customer service under his belt, because had he been Atsumu, then he was sure that he would’ve started yelling back at the man in a just as angry voice in Japanese. 

There’s the sound of someone clearing their throat, and the both of them turn to see the hairdresser’s husband stand next to the angry man. “Osamu-kun, mind if I step in?” he asks with a smile that crinkles his eyes. Osamu wants to say no, doesn’t think it's a good idea for the old man to step in now, when it looks like he could be blown away with one angry huff from the foreigner, but his tone had been reassuring - _confident_ _even_ \- so Osamu nods his head. 

The old man turns to the foreigner, who was eyeing the much smaller elderly next to him. The old man starts to speak, and then it clicks to Osamu. The hairdresser’s husband was the English teacher that had retired during Osamu’s first year of middle school. The man always had such a strong liking to anything traditional and Japanese, even going as far as refusing to try out the onigiri that had been inspired by other cuisines when Osamu offered it to him for free, that it had completely slipped his mind that he used to work as an English teacher. 

The tourist seems to be happy that there is finally someone who he can talk to to get his message across, even if he has to speak more slowly, and listen as the old man - Matsuoka-sensei, Osamu now remembers - repeats himself a couple of times. After exchanging a bit of talk, Matsuoka turns to him. 

“The man here says he wants to try some of your minced tuna and spring onion onigiri,” Matsuoka says. Osamu nods, he had figured out that much at least. 

“He says that he is a big fan of your brother, and that he came here to Japan to watch one of his matches,” he continues. Osamu hides his impressed face. That was a pretty hardcore fan right there, Osamu was definitely _not_ going to tell Atsumu about this. 

“Well tell him that that fillin’ has been crazy popular ever since ‘Tsumu posted ‘bout it. And I only make a limited number of those on weekdays, but if he wants ta come back on Saturday, then I’ll make him one and even toss in a free one for him.”

Matsuoka nods, and then translates it back to the man. From what Osamu could tell, the man seems to consider it for a bit, before saying something to Matsuoka again. “He says that he already has plans on Saturday, but he would be in the area, so he was wondering if he could meet you slightly before opening time for the onigiri?” 

“Sounds perfect to me,” Osamu smiles at Matsuoka, before turning to smile at the man too. Matsuoka translates the rest to the man, and the man seems satisfied as well. He’s back to the boisterous man that had greeted Osamu earlier, and he sticks out his hand for Matsuoka to shake, before turning to Osamu and doing the same, clapping him on the back in a friendly gesture as well. The man exits the store with a deep bow and a loud farewell, and suddenly the store is quiet again. 

Osamu slumps onto a stool and lets out a loud sigh. Matsuoka chuckles at him, and returns to reading the newspaper at his table. “Thank you Matuoka-san, ya really saved my butt back there,” Osamu says as he sits up properly, and dips his head in thanks.

“This is why I kept telling you to not slack off during my class,” Matsuoka laughs at him, and Osamu lets out an embarrassed squawk at being caught. 

“That was ‘Tsumu,” he mutters under his breath, but the old man only laughs harder at that. 

Osamu thought that the store would quiet down after the tourist incident, letting him ride out the rest of the day in slow and tired movements, but it appears that the day did not agree with him. Not even five minutes after the tourists left, did another wave of customers come in - thankfully Japanese people this time -. But just because Osamu could communicate with them, didn’t mean that they didn’t bring their own trouble. 

A family came in with the wave of people and while Osamu was serving some customers behind the counter, something must have happened, because next thing he knows, there’s a crying girl on the floor surrounded by her own vomit, her distraught mother looking close to tears herself as she perfectly folds herself in half to bow in apology. The other customers all seemed to be having just as bad of a day as he was, as they quickly became annoyed by the scent, the noise, and being held up in line. His head nearly bursts from thinking so fast to figure out whether he should deal with the crying-vomit child and mother first, or if he should serve the other people to get more people out of his store as soon as possible. Fortunately, in the line stood one of his - god sent - regulars, a highschool girl, Aoi-chan, who had always been interested in the hospitality industry. She had come to his store enough, and pestered him with enough questions, to know the basics on how he ran the counter, so she stepped in and helped serve the line of customers while he cleaned up the mess. 

Reassuring the mother for the fifth time that, _yes, he was sure it was alright, it had been an accident_ and _no, she did not need to come back later to pay for the damage, there was no damage_ , did he finally manage to get the family to leave. Aoi-chan had handled the customers fairly well for not officially working there, and he smoothly took over for her again - after scrubbing his hands thoroughly with soap and removing his soiled apron. He made sure to apologise for the wait to each customer that he had served, and when the line finally reduced to just Aoi-chan, he threw in an extra onigiri or two into her bag as a thanks. 

By the time the store finally - _finally_ \- clears out, there’s five minutes until closing time, and Osamu wants more than anything to slump over the bench and lay there for the next hundred years or so. He doesn’t recall having a day where he felt this drained since the grand opening day, and even then it had been less hectic with his brother helping out, well more like flirting with the customers, but if that kept them occupied while Osamu handled the other customers, then he wouldn't complain.

He hears the bell of the front door chime, and nearly groans out loud as he packs another leftover rice ball into the tupperware container to bring home. Osamu doesn’t know who he was expecting, but it definitely wasn’t him - tall and slender, with pale skin and dark hair that only seemed to bring out his narrow golden eyes even more - the new guy. _Definitely_ the new guy, because Osamu would have definitely remembered a face as beautiful as his if he had met him before. He doesn’t know _how_ he knows that it was the man that seemed to be the topic of Mitsuki’s latest complaints, but he just _knows_ that he wasn’t another random tourist. The man feels so familiar to him, despite Osamu meeting him for the first time today. Mitsuki’s stories must have gotten to him more than he had thought. 

“Welcome to Onigiri Miya,” Osamu greets, trying to get his heart to stop hammering against his chest. His energy was already at its lowest level, with him having skipped his lunch break in favour of serving the never ending stream of customers that appeared today, so he doesn’t think that it would be healthy if his heart suddenly starts pounding like this as well.

The man nods in acknowledgement, and looks curiously around his store. Osamu takes note of the little onigiri that was leftover on the display shelf, and grimaces when he sees it mainly bare. He knows that there’s a sign saying that Osamu would willingly make an onigiri with whatever filling upon request if he had the ingredients for it, but right now he was honestly feeling too exhausted to make another onigiri, even if it was for a handsome customer. He really hopes that the man would just take whatever was left over and return another day, perhaps when Osamu wasn’t feeling as grumpy and strung out like he was right now.

The man takes a seat at the counter, and Osamu doesn’t groan out loud, but he does allow himself a small sigh of frustration, before pushing himself up from his crouching position. He makes his way over to where the man was sitting at the counter, and plasters on a smile. 

“What can I get ya?” he asks in a light voice. 

The man drags his eyes from across the store to Osamu, and Osamu feels a shiver run down his spine. He feels like a small rabbit that got caught in a fox’s den, except that would be pretty ridiculous, because Osamu was anything but small, and if anything, the store was _his_ den, not the other guy’s one.

“Is it true that you take orders upon request, Miya-san?” the man asks, voice low and smooth to Osamu’s ears.

“Jus’ Osamu’s fine. And yeah, it depends on whether I have the ingredients or not. But who might be askin’?” Osamu knew already, but he finally saw his face and having a name would make it a lot better when listening to more of Mitsuki’s complaints later on.

“Suna. Suna Rintarou,” he says with a lazy smile, extending his hand out for Osamu.

“Nice ta finally meet ya, Sunarin. I’ve heard a lot about ya”. Osamu takes the offered hand into his own, and watches as Suna’s lips curl up further upon hearing the nickname. 

“Oh really? What have you heard?” His voice comes out in a nonchalant tone, but Osamu doesn't miss the way his fingers start fiddling with his wallet on the counter. 

“Heard ya moved in a couple of months ago. Was wonderin’ when I would finally get to meet ya. Ya know there are only so many restaurants here, and I do think that my onigiri are the tastiest, if I do haf’ta say so myself,” Osamu jokes. 

Suna rests his chin on one propped up arm and continues playing with his wallet with the other, a languid smile resting on his lips. 

“Mhmm, I don’t doubt that, your inarizushi are pretty tast-”

Suna snaps his mouth shut, and Osamu whips his head up so fast from where he had been refilling a tray of napkins that he’s surprised his neck was still in tact. 

They stare at each other, frozen still, and Osamu doesn’t know if he had heard Suna correctly. 

He hasn’t told anyone about the fox nor his food ventures, not even his brother when he came down to visit some weeks ago. He had wanted to tell Atsumu but it hadn’t felt right to Osamu, like the fox was his own little secret. During that time, Osamu had even snuck out to feed the fox after he was sure Atsumu was occupied with eating the leftover onigiri. Though of course, his absence didn’t go unnoticed by his twin and Atsumu had even accused him of picking up smoking, dragging him close to sniff at once Osamu had returned from feeding the fox. Osamu, annoyed by this had thrown a punch and told him that if any of them were going to start smoking, it would be Atsumu out in the big city filled with smokers everywhere. Atsumu didn’t appreciate his retort, so he had thrown a punch in return and suddenly one punch became two, and then three. By the end of it, they had ended up in a brawl that didn’t end until one of them had knocked over the plate on the table, the sound of the glass shattering bringing them back to their senses. Osamu had made Atsumu pay him back for the broken plate by getting him to wash the other dishes the day after, which he used as time to sneak out to feed the fox, only staying long enough to give the fox a couple of pets on the head and whispering a hushed _“gotta go, the pig ‘Tsumu’s here”_. 

Osamu is convinced that he had heard the other wrong, he _wants_ to believe that he had heard the other wrong, but all the signs point to the fact. The wallet falls from Suna’s loose grip onto the table, and as if a string had been cut, Suna jolts out of whatever state of shock he had been and turns around to bolt out the door before Osamu could even blink.

Osamu’s thoughts buzz through his brain at speeds that he can’t comprehend, and suddenly he’s moving on pure muscle memory, packing away the leftover onigiri, wiping down all the surfaces, stacking the chairs and then shutting off the lights. He doesn’t know how he made it home in one piece considering that he wasn’t fully out of it yet, but he also manages to do his night routine and get himself to bed in this state. It’s not until he’s tucked in bed, staring into the ceiling in the darkness of his room did it finally hit him. 

_Fuck, he’s been meeting with Suna all this time._

No wonder his presence had felt so familiar to him. Now that he thought about it, the fox Suna shared so many similarities with his human self that it was a wonder that he didn’t pick up on it earlier. From the tufts of hair, to the narrow calculating eyes and laidback demeanour, Osamu should have known. 

He doesn’t know how long he lays there thinking it all over in his brain, but it was long enough that he was still partly conscious to hear his alarm go off in the morning. His work at the store passes by in a mixture of blurred rice and faces, and he didn't have any expectations, but he still couldn’t help but feel the slight twinge of disappointment clutching his heart when Suna didn’t walk through the doors during the day. After he closes the doors, he spends nearly an hour just sitting on the stairs of his back door, a small plate of neatly arranged inarizushi next to him, but no fox in sight. Again, he tries not to let the disappointment get the better of him, but it was kind of difficult considering that it had become something so ingrained in his routine that he had started looking forward to it at the end of his day. 

By the fourth day, it was clear to him that Suna wasn’t going to come back any time soon. Osamu vaguely wonders how the man was feeding himself, considering that his wallet was with Osamu at the store, but then he remembers that the other man could transform into a fox and literally find food anywhere else. _Yeah, like his store's backdoor stairs where he was still waiting for him every night_. 

His phone starts ringing in his pocket, and he doesn’t even have to check to know who it was. 

“Ya look like shit,” comes Atsumu’s slightly muffled voice, like he had his phone pressed between his shoulder and ear.

“Yer literally my identical twin, so ya look like shit too,” Osamu retorts immediately. “And how would’ya know how I look like through a voice call, I could be all dressed up right now.”

“That would make ya look even more like shit, proving my point exactly. And I don’ need to see you to know that ya look like shit,” Atsumu replies.

“Was it Ma?” Osamu asks, because how else would Atsumu know that he was feeling down, all the way from Tokyo. He knew that he still sounded the same over text. 

“Technically it was Mitsuki-san who told Ma, and then Ma told me, so take it how ya wanna.”

Osamu sighs loudly into the phone, and leans back against his other arm as he stares up into the sky on the stairs. Suna hadn’t visited today either, in human form or fox form. 

“Stop sulkin’ like a baby already,” Atsumu complains, and Osamu was going to tell him that he wasn’t sulking, but Atsumu starts off again. “Just go talk to whoever rejected you, like how you scammed all of your business partners into working with you.”

Osamu snorts into the phone. “I didn’t scam no one.”

“Nah, you definitely scammed Kita-san. Else he wouldn’t be workin’ with someone like ya.”

“Hah, yer just mad that I get to see Kita-san regularly and ya don’t”.

Atsumu made a loud sound of disbelief over the phone, and Osamu knew that he had struck a nerve. The bickered like this for the rest of the hour, and Osamu didn’t have to explicitly say it, but he knew that Atsumu knew that he was grateful for the call.

Tomorrow was Sunday, which meant that it was his day off, but Osamu had a plan and that involved him coming back into the kitchen.

-

Maybe his plan wasn’t as perfect as he had thought. One, his body wasn’t used to getting up at this time on a Sunday morning, so he had promptly shut off his alarm when it blared through the room. He had started dozing off again when images of languid smiles and golden narrow eyes flashed through his mind. He had immediately stumbled out of bed then. Secondly, he had forgotten just how far Mitsuki-san had lived from his store. He knew that she lived in one of the houses on the outskirts of their town, but actually taking the trek himself, had left him panting and taking several breaks halfway through. It didn’t help that more than half of the way was an uphill path. Osamu thinks that his highschool self would have been ashamed of him if he saw himself now. Still, he makes it to his destination in one piece, if not a little tired. He sees Mitsuki’s house a couple of hundred metres away, and knows that this was the place. 

The house was a tall two story place that had definitely seen a better time. Regardless, it stood tall and strong, like it had been given another chance at holding life. It was obvious to see that the place was now well taken care of. Osamu let out a shaky breath, wiping the palm of his clammy hand against the back of his jeans before bringing it up to hit three swift knocks against the wooden door with his knuckles. 

There was a reason why Osamu always chose to invite his friends over to _his_ place, rather than let them invite him over to _theirs_. One, he could decide what food would be available, and two, he didn’t need to stand awkwardly outside of their house, waiting for them to reach the front door. He feels his heartbeat pick up pace with the sound of approaching footsteps. 

“Good mor-” Suna’s eyes widen from where he is hiding behind the crack of the door. Osamu’s hand flies to grip the edge of the door just as Suna pulls at it to close. Fortunately, Osamu was just a tad bit stronger than the other.  
  
“Sunarin,” he says whilst pushing the door open. Suna had quickly given up on trying to shut Osamu out. With the door out of the way, Osamu could see Suna more properly. The other looks smaller than he had been the last time Osamu had seen him, and Osamu wonders whether Suna had _actually_ been able to feed himself properly without his wallet or not. Whatever reprimand was on his lip dies out as he sees Suna’s eyes, the liquid pools of gold that had him enraptured upon first sight, now seem to have simmered down to a dull faded shade of its former glory.

He softens his eyes and brings up his other hand with a hopeful smile. “I heard ya haven’t left the house in a while, so I thought that you must be hungry.” 

Suna narrows his eyes at him, his arms crossing over his chest in a defensive manner as he leans on shoulder against his door frame. Osamu reaches his other hand inside the bag to produce a tupperware box. 

“Look, I brought ya favourite,” Osamu proudly holds up the tupperware to eye level. The container is lined in neat rows of inarizushi, each carefully prepared this morning by Osamu himself. He hears Suna let out a small snort, and there is finally a smile on his face. 

“I prefer Chuupets over inarizushi actually,” Suna says as he takes the box offered to him. He moves away from the doorframe, inviting Osamu into his home. 

Osamu’s shoulder brushes against Suna’s as he enters the house, and their eyes meet with a knowing look.

His mouth curls up in a teasing smile. “Well aren't cha lucky, I still have some left at the store.”

**Author's Note:**

> My first sunaosa fic, I hope you liked it!! These two have taken over my brain so quickly, its not even funny anymore. This ship has quickly become one of my top ones, and it might be because ive read so many magical realism/urban fantasy fics with them in it, or maybe i just really like those AUs, but i just had to write one myself, and what better way than osamu feeding suna, right? Also sorry if there's ver little actual interaction between osamu and suna, I realised this became very osamu centric very fast and I couldn't stop hhhh
> 
> Anyways, if you liked it, please feel free to leave a kudos or a comment or come talk to me on [twt](https://twitter.com/minie_ai) (pls :') )
> 
> (fun fact: the scene of the tourist girl holding out her coins like no face is inspired from something i actually did when i visited japan. we had just arrived and were buying food in a konbini, but had to rush to catch our train. i wasn't familiar with japan's many coins, so i just dumped all of them onto my palms and offered them to the poor store worker, lmao i bet he laughed about it afterwards)


End file.
